


Seiðr

by misskass



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), The Avengers, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Genderbending, M/M, Magic, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-29
Updated: 2011-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-25 01:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misskass/pseuds/misskass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve really needed to learn to stop accepting Tony's invites to 'a night out on the town'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seiðr

Steve really needed to learn to stop accepting Tony's invites to _a night out on the town_. Where in his time a night out was a trip to the cinema with Bucky for the latest news on the war effort, in 2012 a night out involved loud noises, bright lights, and far too many scantily-clad women for Steve's liking. There was also a rather large amount of alcohol involved, and it's not that Steve was opposed to drinking, but his permanently increased metabolic rate made it so ineffective that he'd stopped bothering.

At 12AM on one particular Thursday night off Steve found himself sitting at the bar of some ridiculous, gaudy club, something he'd never dreamed he'd find himself in back in the forties. It reminded him of the girls he'd sometimes see late at night, back before he met the doctor and Howard Stark and... and everyone else. Girls dressed in their fineries but a little too loose with their words, their footsteps a little too uneven for them to just be travelling home from a party. But then, what respectable women would be seen travelling in groups - or alone, heaven forbid - with such potential threats around every corner? Steve would skirt them carefully, the pungent smell of spirits wafting from them as they giggled and tittered amongst themselves, pausing to lean against a brick wall and retch into a gutter as he looked on helplessly and scurried away.

Girls had long stopped looking like that, Steve quickly realised, but their actions had never changed. As he sat at the bar he watched a group of them usher one particularly sorry-looking girl into the bathroom, and another group cheer on a girl wrapping herself rather lewdly around a pole mounted between the ground and the ceiling. Steve averted his eyes back to his drink, soda and scotch (never whiskey, not after that day in the burned-out bar) that he enjoyed for the taste more than anything else, and to placate a wasted Tony who insisted that they drink together.

Unfortunately for Steve, 'drinking together' with wasted Tony had turned into Steve sitting by himself as Tony played the room, girls dropping everything for a moment with Iron Man. The relative silence of anonymity was kind of a nice change from the buzz that had followed Captain America on his tour across the states, so Steve was free to tap his fingers against his glass and watch the women flock to his friend in peace. It wasn't until a pair of fingers tapped against his own that he realised he was no longer anonymous and no longer alone.

"Hi." The voice was feminine, a purr dropped directly into his ear, and Steve jumped in his seat, knocking his mostly-empty glass onto the floor behind the bar. The bartender glared and muttered obscenities under his breath about prettyboy blonds and their dumb girlfriends as he cleaned up the mess, but Steve was busy being captivated by the woman that had spoken. Her eyes were clear, the brightest green he'd ever come across, and they held his attention for far longer than she'd wanted. "Hello?"

Steve shook his head, trying to pull himself out of his reverie. He was no longer passive, no longer terrified of women, instead he was an adult who could open his mouth and say something to the gorgeous green-eyed stranger without sounding obtuse. "Evening, miss." _A little old-fashioned_ , his brain said, _but it'll do_. _Tony would be appalled_.

In the moments it took him to hush his rebelling brain the woman had started speaking again, and Steve's eyes were drawn to her red-stained lips. A flash of unwanted memory shot behind his eyelids as he blinked, trying to make the past disappear. He would never sully his memories of _her_ with any woman from now. "... with Tony?" She quirked an eyebrow at him as she finished her question, trailing off at his blank look. Bizarrely, as her eyes widened with the movement of her brow the colour of her irises flickered between green and blue in the club's flashing lights. "I said are you here with Tony? Tony Stark?"

"Oh," he coughed, clearing his throat and looking away from her eyes, "yes! Yes, I work with him." _Loose lips, Captain_ , his brain reminded him, and he dug his nails into his palm. Talking to women had, rather unsurprisingly, not gotten any easier in the past seventy years.

The woman turned around, leaning her elbows on the bar and cocking her head towards the squealing group of women that could only be surrounding Tony Stark. "Gorgeous man, isn't he?" she asked nonchalantly, running her tongue along her top row of teeth and shrugging a shoulder, her green dress fluttering with the movement. Steve choked on his own saliva, coughing until his eyes burned. How unbecoming. The woman laughed it off and waved her hand through the air, an ornate silver ring covered in a script he didn't recognise glittering in the rapidly flashing lights. "The women certainly think that he is, and I assume quite a few men do as well," she prompted, nodding at a slightly smaller group of men heading towards the Stark crowd.

"I don't... we're not..." Steve attempted to explain, but she cut him off again, trailing a finger down his cheek.

"I know, darling. I know."

It was then that Steve began to feel somewhat uncomfortable in her presence. She was beautiful, without a doubt, but her clear eyes were cold when he looked into them for too long, and the fingertip along his cheek chilled his heated skin. No matter how uncomfortable he felt, though, Steve wouldn't just walk away from her. No woman deserved that, however unfriendly she seemed. He turned to her with the intention of excusing himself, but found her hand clasped over his, a sudden calm spreading through his body, the sparkle of her ornate ring suddenly a little brighter.

"Stay a while, won't you?" Her voice was low, practically serpentine, buzzing through his veins until it dulled the discomfort in his brain down to a bare minimum, pushed behind the recognition that she was so desperately beautiful.

Slack-jawed, Steve remembered feeling like this only once before; on the night Bucky had coerced him into a few drinks after one of the newsreels and he'd stumbled home in a drunken haze. After that night, never again had Steve accepted invitations to go out drinking with Bucky's friends, so it wasn't until that woman's touch that he was reminded of the numb, heavy feeling that took over his limbs when he'd had too much drink. Without any proper control he found himself nodding, a spark of pleasure welling up inside him at being asked to stay with such a stunning woman as the green-and-blue-eyed stranger.

The woman cast her gaze over the crowd, and if Steve looked carefully enough he could imagine that she could almost see straight through people, could see straight through _anything_ if she tried hard enough. It was a ridiculous thought, but his addled mind was filled only with thoughts of her thin fingers and her red lips, and how heartbreakingly she reminded him of his first real love.

She deftly grasped his wrist and began pulling him towards the door, away from Tony. Something in Steve's brain registered that as _wrong_ and he pulled back, wincing as the woman's grip grew tighter and her fingers all but turned to ice, freezing him to the bone. "No, no, darling," she whispered, quiet enough that Steve knew it was just for him, but loud enough that he could hear it clearly above the racket of the club. "Come with me."

Unable to defy her, Steve followed the woman out of the club, his footsteps as lazy as those of the drunk girls from his past. Whenever he stumbled she would catch him, wiry limbs concealing strength greater even than that of Captain America, and somewhere in Steve's brain he was sure he'd be worried about that in the morning. For the moment he was only concerned with the woman, watching her green silk dress flit about her heels as she practically glided across the uneven cobblestones towards the Avengers Mansion.

"How did you..." he began, thumbing at his collar, feeling as though it was constricting his throat. He meant to ask her how she'd known that he was living in the mansion, if she knew he was an Avenger, why he still didn't know her name, but the words caught in his throat and languished behind his heavy tongue. "Miss..." he tried again, panic reasserting itself in the depths of his brain.

The woman huffed and pushed Steve against a brick wall, sealing her lips to his. Initial shock at the sudden contact wore away to leave Steve pressing back, every confused thought melting away as the stranger's lips cooled his own despite the warmth of the evening. "Silence and compliance, _Captain_ ," she intoned into his ear after she pulled away, and Steve could only nod in reply, blind to the inappropriateness of his actions and the uncanny situation.

It felt like it had taken mere minutes for the pair to reach the mansion, even though Steve was sure it had taken himself and Tony a substantial limo ride through the city to get to the club in the first place. Once they reached the front gate, devoid of people despite the - by New York standards - early hour, Steve slumped against the metal fence, struggling to hold himself up under the force of the woman's seduction.

The bizarre intoxication slithering through his veins prevented Steve from questioning the woman or her hidden strength as she hauled him to his feet again and pointed him towards the gate's electronic lock system. "Come on, Steve," she whispered, "we need to get inside." Stumbling, Steve pressed his fingers and palm to the keypad and sank into the sound of the woman's voice as she whispered _yes_ and the gate slid quietly open. His brain was pleasantly fuzzy, fuzzier even than it had been in the club when he'd agreed - or had he really agreed at all? - to leave with her, and he followed along obediently as she stalked towards the front door, her hand wrapped around his own. Not that Steve cared, but as they walked he noticed that her footsteps were much less light than they had started out, as though she'd put on the movement for his benefit and the need to pretend was slowly wearing off.

Steve dutifully pressed the palm of his other hand to the door's lock and smiled at the tonal _click_ as the first system shut off, then grimaced as his knees gave out and he ended up on his back on the stone entranceway. Only with the tiniest hint of clarity could he imagine Tony's reaction to a drunk Steve Rogers, but the blurry image in his brain made him smile nonetheless and he shut his eyes so he could properly relish mental-Tony's glee. It was only when the woman kicked him in the side to remind him of her presence that he blinked his eyes open and glared at her indistinct form. "The second code, Rogers?"

The cool stone against his back sobered him up somewhat - and internally he laughed at that, _sobered_ like he'd actually gotten drunk to begin with - and he slurred, "How d'you even know w'need a second code?" at her as she fumed at his prone form.

"Because, _Avenger_ ," she spat, hauling him to his feet and shoving him against the wall, holding him there with a slim thigh between his legs, "I've studied this Midgardian system of electrical magic for _weeks_ , and I will not be stopped by another uncoordinated and arrogant braggart like my brother." Her beautiful face was slipping into something more sinister, cheekbones that were shapely less than an hour ago were sharpening dramatically and her eyes were growing colder, hatred settling into the creased line of her brow.

The woman's words were slipping awkwardly through Steve's brain, sticky and sluggish and not quite making sense any more. He could pick out _Midgardian_ and _electrical magic_ , and _brother_ stuck out like a sore thumb in conjunction with her suddenly magisterial speech patterns. There'd been a lack of direct skin-to-skin contact for a while, Steve had noticed, as everywhere she was currently touching him was through clothing bar the caress of her frozen breath, and his head was slowly clearing. Maybe electrical magic wasn't the only magic she was familiar with.

Cursing the length of time she'd had him under her spell, Steve continued letting his body languish against the wall, but attempted to force his brain into action while she still fumed at his face, her hands pressed to the brickwork either side of his head. As he sobered - and he allowed a moment of amusement at that again - he attempted to figure a way out of her hold without touching her bared skin. Unfortunately as he cast his gaze carefully over her body in an attempt to find a safe place to hold her a blush threatening to rise over his cheekbones and he squeezed his eyes shut, slumping further against the leg wedged uncomfortably between his thighs.

Only moments later Steve jerked his eyes back open as the woman punched the wall beside his head, cracks radiating from the center of the impact. "Give me the code, Avenger, or I swear this night will be your last." Her voice was but a growl now, more than an octave lower than before, and her features were decidedly more masculine than they had started out. The moment Steve realised - with more than slight discontent - that there were no longer breasts pressing against his chest where there had been before, he grasped the woman - man? - around the waist, spun around, and slammed her - him? - to the mansion wall, keeping his face out of reach of wildly flailing arms.

"Who are you, trickster?" Steve tried to keep his voice steady, the magic slowly trailing out of his system and his strength returning, along with his ingrained opposition to manhandling women. Only as he glanced down to a decidedly flat chest could he convince himself that there was no longer a woman present. When his opponent refused to answer Steve pushed him further up the wall, his feet no longer touching the ground and his torso twitching with silent rage.

Suddenly: "Steve?" The sound of his name slurred loudly from behind him startled Steve into dropping the body he was holding, and before he could catch hold of the slim figure again it had melted into the walls of the building and out of sight, leaving only a hissed warning behind.

"I will return, _Avenger_."

"Sssteve?" Steve turned just in time to catch Tony as he tripped on the stone pathway to the front door. "Sssssteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve?" Tony's eyes were bloodshot and his skin was blisteringly warm against Steve's own, a beautiful contrast to the chill from what Steve would one day realise was Loki, Thor's estranged and villainous brother. For the moment Steve was content to relish in Tony's warmth and drunken joviality, little flashes of an equally drunk Bucky behind his eyelids every time he blinked, Tony's modern-day suit meshing with 1940s army fatigues.

"Steeeeeeeeve?" Tony whined in a rather uncharacteristic fashion as Steve hauled him up and wrapped an arm across his torso, supporting Tony against his hip like an overgrown child.

"Yes?"

"Were you bringing girls back to the mansion? You-" Tony paused to hiccup, "-know how Fury feels about that." Tony's serious face made Steve laugh, along with how horribly incorrect his wasted companion and fellow Avenger was.

"I'll explain in the morning, my friend."

**Author's Note:**

> "What kind of transformative magic is this that plays with names, bodies, falsifications and putrefactions? The Norse called it "dirty magic," seiðr, that is, "women's magic" ... Seiðr is notorious for transgressing boundaries between male and female, human and animal, and for altering nature and destiny." http://www.illinoismedieval.org/ems/VOL11/higley.html


End file.
